Like Dying
by wynnebat
Summary: The founders of Hogwarts rise again to battle an old enemy, and Harry's life is caught in the middle of the search for Godric Gryffindor. Somewhat dark, non-romance.


Headmaster Igor Karkaroff had better things to do than roam the halls of Durmstrang Institute at midnight. The school kept strict protocol for students' nighttime wandering – once, punishment, twice, expulsion. No student had been caught outside his dormitory in twenty-one years since Igor himself had been caught by his own Headmaster. These days, he doled out twice the punishment he'd gotten as a student, an occurrence that got him to be named the harshest taskmaster of Durmstrang Institute since the very first headmaster, a man who had founded the school over one thousand years ago. Little was known about this man, not only because time had erased records of his existence. He came to Durmstrang Island under an assumed name, and named the island and later the school after his birthplace, an Irish village.

Karkaroff exited the academy's main hallway and moved up to the second year boys' dormitories, a class that had always given him trouble. They were just too excitable, the little bastards. Finished with one year, they feel like kings—or survivors, as one graduating student had called himself. Igor had given him a rare smile at the title.

Durmstrang was a school for survivors, much unlike the pale-faced, baby-cheeked students of Hogwarts School and Beauxbatons Academy. Why, Hogwarts didn't even teach dueling! And Beauxbatons taught manners like their students' lives would one day depend on them. Durmstrang students either fell in line (literally, as students walked straight lines, sometimes in a march) or were booted out. In his twenty years as Headmaster, Igor had personally expelled three dozen idiots. They had all gone by way of home-schooling or a minor, less reputable school of magic—none dared to appeal to Hogwarts and Beauxbatons. A Durmstrang man had much more pride than that.

Igor made his way to the lowest point of Durmstrang Institute, chuckling quietly to himself. No student dared to be out at this time (and if he did, he better do well to hide himself), and none would certainly go here. It was a room long forgotten by the newest crop of trainees, but it had worked as a secret training room many decades ago. At seventeen, Igor himself had been caught there after hours, practicing spellwork in the dark. He was sent home the very next day. Ironic, that he now walked these same floors as the most powerful man in the school. No matter what, he would always remember his Lord for providing him with the opportunity.

The room was octagonal in shape, an odd design that the historians believed to of religious significance of some sort, lost to history. Musty old training mats covered the floors and the room smelled little better than it looked. But the very far wall was what lured misbehaving students to this very room. A life-sized mural covered the entire far wall, spanning four meters wide and two meters high. It the mural, a man sat inside a library of books and scrolls, occasionally writing something and shaking his head. He picked a book up occasionally for a closer look, only to throw it sideways as if not finding an answer in it.

The man, a redhead, looked too wild to be caught in a library of sorts at first glance, but once one looked for long enough, one saw that he belonged there. It was not a depiction of Durmstrang's library, however; to Durmstrang's shame (they had never been able to rid themselves of the mural, and the wall itself could not be brought down without bringing the sea in and the school down with it), they had a painting of Hogwart's library inside its borders. An act of a patriotic idiot, some presumed.

Others said this man was the founder of Durmstrang, a man by the name of Durmson. Igor only knew that the man, who did more sometimes, never spoke a word. Sometimes fuzzy murmurings could be heard, like the scene was behind a heavy glass, but never words. The man never looked up from his work, either, unlike now.

Igor stopped in place when he noticed the man looking up. Not just up—straight at him. It did not seem like a delusion, but Igor cast a quick wakening charm on himself as a precaution. When the man still stared, Igor had no choice but to speak, "Good evening, resident portrait."

The man stroked his red beard. "A good evening it is, monseiur."

A Frenchman? In an English library? In _his_ castle? Igor huffed with a renewed determination to break down the wall. Rumors of the man, curious questions had no place now. Except— "Iwonder if you might answer me this question. I asked a long time ago—I don't know if you remember. Who are you?"

"A long time ago? Yes, you've grown. I wonder if you might indulge me in something before I speak. Cast a spell to brighten this room. I have not seen my school in centuries."

"With your permission, we could have you moved." Igor did as the man asked, casting a blue fire that lit the room in pale light. The man's eyes lingered on Igor's wand, but he did nothing more than watch with a curious expression.

"Thank you. I would like that, to see the world again. I'll just be a moment."

Igor made a move to speak—could the man move from his wall?—when he noticed something odd happening. The oil strokes seemed to be shifting up and down and protruding outwards. The lines of the man, originally murky and unclear, a clear sign of Romantic painting, deepened and straightened into a photograph-like image. It was remarkable. Igor had never seen anything like it.

Caught up in his interest and the anticipation of finding the answer to his question, Igor didn't notice the first strings of tiredness creeping up on him. Subconsciously he put them onto his recent sleepless nights, plagued by nightmares of the Dark Lord and the war.

While his mind threatened to bring Igor away from the moment, the portrait kept changing until a bulge appeared under the paint. The bulge rose and rose, and along with it came the lines of the painting, wrapping around the bulge.

The first stroke of nervousness rushed into Igor. "What are you doing, portrait?"

"I'd like to speak with you," the man said, and Igor noticed something odd about his voice. It was deepening, hollowing, changing as he spoke and the bulge grew into a humanoid shape.

That was what it was. The man was stepping out of the portrait.

Igor felt a burst of pain in his heart. "What— The light. You didn't need a light." The man had candles in his office while he read. He needed no light. Portraits needed no light to see humans, as they weren't human themselves. They were beings of magic. Igor's fingers trembled as he whipped his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the man who was slowly killing him.

"Stop," he ordered in one last attempt to find this man's secrets. But when his shape became almost human, Igor had no choice. A scholar he was not, and curiosity had no place in his castle. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

The line of green light hit the man square in the chest, just below his heart, but the man did not collapse. Igor hadn't used the spell in a decade, but he knew he wasn't rusty. This was something else.

The man in the portrait raised his hand toward Igor. The light that illuminated the room flickered once, twice, thrice, and completely went out.

With it, Igor Karkaroff slumped to the ground, his body the shell of the man he was.

The man in the portrait, no longer a painting but a flesh-and-blood man, smiled.

"My name is Salazar Slytherin."

.

I guess you could call this an experiment in magic going even further down the morally wrong road. This is also a total AU of the series, fyi.


End file.
